Day 342 - Mortar and Pestle

Day 342. 

Julie & Julia makes a pretty big deal out of the mortar and pestle. Chex Max Bugnard calls it a "must have" in the kitchen, even though I've never found myself needing one in my cooking expeditions.

 

I mean, it's basically just a bowl with smashing stick, right? What's all the hubub about? Paul even gives Julia a mortar and pestle for Valentine's Day and it's supposed to be super sweet and thoughtful or something. Just seems like a shitty gift to me. Whatever happened to good 'ol fashioned diamonds, huh? (or pearls)

But anyways, this little mortar/pestle 1-2 punch comes back multiple times throughout the film, leading me to believe that it has some kind of significance that I'm just not seeing.

I don't get why it's such a big deal. If you've got to mush something up, what's wrong with a spoon? Or a nutcracker? Or two rocks? (though I guess that's what a mortar and pestle is). The only time I've ever used a mortar and pestle is to grind up cornflakes in preschool as some kind of hand-eye coordination activity. Does Julia use her mortar and pestle to grind up cornflakes? Pressing questions with no apparent answers.

Maybe its a phallic symbol? Or rather, a marriage of phallic and yonic imagery, where the act of inserting the pestle into the mortar stands in for the act of sexual intercourse. This interpretation would go well with the happy marriage/relations themes in Julie & Julia. The pestle pounds away at the insides of the mortar until the contents are turned into a finely ground powder... ah fuck it, this metaphor makes no sense. I guess I'm just trying to find deeper meaning in something that has none.

Just like another blogger...

Mortars and pestles are just dumb.

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Julie & Julia Quote of the Day: "There's her famous mortar and pestle."